Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Disinformation and Reality in the Persian Gulf

The Economist, in its May 19th issue, (Iran and nuclear weapons: stick
now, carrot later) ran a useful summary of diplomatic efforts and options
to get Iran to relinquish its nuclear research (weaponisation) programme.
According to The Economist, Iran’s new willingness to negotiate is apparently
due to the effect of economic sanctions as well as IAEA reporting:

Iran’s return to the
table in an apparently more constructive mood marks a sharp change. The latest
round of talks failed in January 2011, after Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed
Jalili, set preconditions that other countries found unacceptable. But since
the end of 2011 pressure on the regime in Tehran has increased. The UN’s
nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), published a
damning report detailing its concerns over the “possible military dimensions”
of Iran’s nuclear programme.

International
sanctions have bitten hard—creating a “world of hurt” in President Barack Obama’s
words. America now penalises any foreign financial institutions doing business
with Iran’s central bank, the country’s main conduit for oil money, and the
European Union has imposed an embargo on Iranian oil, due to come into full
effect by July.

According to The Economist, based on IAEA and
other sources, Iran may already have sufficient nuclear material for one
nuclear bomb:

On all counts, Iran is now very close to
the nuclear threshold. It already has about 6,000kg of 3.5% LEU, enough to
produce about five bombs-worth of weapons-grade HEU. Using the four centrifuge
cascades at the new Fordow enrichment site, near the holy city of Qom, and 15
additional cascades at the main Natanz site (each has between 164 and 174
centrifuges), it has recently tripled production of 19.75% LEU to about 13kg a
month. It may now have a stockpile of 150kg—near to the 185kg needed to produce
the 15-20kg of HEU required for a moderately sophisticated implosion device
(although about twice that amount of 19.75% LEU would be needed for a first
bomb because of initial wastage).

The IAEA’s November report also
indicated that Iran had probably already tested a sophisticated detonation
system for an explosive device suitable for use as a ballistic-missile warhead
(albeit the tests are likely to have taken place before 2004, when the
weaponisation side of the programme was pursued more energetically than it is
today). Informed by the IAEA’s work and intelligence sources, estimates of
Iran’s potential timeline to nuclear weapons—if the country were to quit the
NPT and throw everything into its programme—vary between just a couple of
months for a single crude device and more than two years for an arsenal of
three or four nuclear-tipped, solid-fuelled ballistic missiles.

Unmentioned in this report is the military build-up which has been
occurring in the Middle East and Persian Gulf over the past 6 months. This
force increase is aimed both at Syria and Iran. In Syria, the force increase
is meant to both discourage the Syrian conflict from spilling over to
neighbouring regions, as well as to signal resolve towards the Syrian
government. Recent press reports, however, indicate that Western public opinion is now
being prepared to accept a force intervention in the name of protecting
chemical weapons stockpiles and intervening against Al Qaeda. The Syrian conflict has already spilled over into Lebanon and Turkey, as well as involving more distant allies and proxies such as Libya and Iran.

The planning, involving intelligence
and military officials from at least seven countries, includes detailed
arrangements for securing chemical arms with special operations troops in the
event that parts of Syria are seized by militants, the officials said. Western
and regional intelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Islamic extremists could attempt to seize control of whole towns
and districts if the country slides into
full-scale civil war.

An expert panel
monitoring U.N. sanctions on Iran has reported that Syria continues to be the
main destination of illicit Iranian weapons, a Security Council diplomat said
Wednesday. The diplomat, speaking
on condition of anonymity because the panel’s report has not been released,
said it identified three new illegal shipments, two involving Syria which was
also the previous destination of a majority of Iranian arms shipments.

These press reports come on the heels of
earlier reports that some 12,000 special forces troops from the United States
and other countries have deployed on a "military exercise" in Jordan. Agence France Presse reports that:

The United States and its allies have started in Jordan what was
described as the largest military exercises in the Middle East in 10 years,
focusing on "irregular warfare," top officers said on Tuesday.…Eager
Lion 2012 "is the largest exercise held in the region in the past ten
years," he said at the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre
in north Amman. More than 12,000 soldiers are taking part in the war games,
representing 19 countries, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Australia.

In another set of reports, the press has been
focussing on the build-up of forces around Iran in the Persian Gulf, and Israeli
decision-making on whether or not to take military action.

On April 26th Aviation Week
reported (UAE-based
F22s a signal to Iran) that the US moved an F-22 wing to the Al Dafra Air
Base in the United Arab Emirates.

As tensions between Tehran, Washington and Tel Aviv continue to mount
over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons technologies, the U.S. has quietly begun
a deployment of its premier stealthy fighter, the twin-engine F-22, to the
United Arab Emirates. Multiple Lockheed Martin aircraft will operate out of Al
Dhafra Air Base there, industry sources say. This is the same base from which
U.S. U-2s and Global Hawk UAVs have been launched since shortly after the 9/11
terrorist attacks.

The Los Angeles Times reported on January
12th (US
boosts its military presence in Persian Gulf) of the increase of US forces
in the Gulf region. These forces include troop contingents stationed there
after their withdrawal from Iraq, as well as naval forces which have been
transferred independently:

The Pentagon has
stationed nearly 15,000 troops in Kuwait, including a small contingent already
there. The new deployments include two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter
unit, a substantial increase in combat power after nearly a decade in which
Kuwait chiefly served as a staging area for supplies and personnel heading to
Iraq.

The Pentagon also has
decided to keep two aircraft carriers and their strike groups in the region.
This week, the American aircraft carrier Carl Vinson joined the aircraft
carrier John C. Stennis in the Arabian Sea, giving commanders major naval and
air assets in case Iran carries out its recent threats to close the Strait of
Hormuz, a strategic choke point in the Persian Gulf through which one-fifth of
the world's oil shipments passes.

As the deadline
for a decision draws nearer, the public pronouncements of Israel's top
officials and military have changed. After hawkish warnings about a possible
strike earlier this year, their language of late has been more guarded and clues
to their intentions more difficult to discern.

"The top
of the government has gone into lockdown," one official said. "Nobody
is saying anything publicly. That in itself tells you a lot about where things
stand."

This brief review of developments as
described in “mainstream” media remind one of previous campaigns to
prepare public opinion for war in the Persian Gulf. At this stage, it is difficult to understand whether the military build-up is there to be used, or as a
negotiating tactic to force a diplomatic outcome. This is no doubt a deliberate
tactic.

What remains to be seen, however, is how long
this armed stability will last. It is difficult to imagine that Iran, for
example, will risk a direct confrontation. On the other hand, it is difficult
to imagine Iran giving up a hypothetical nuclear weapons programme given the lessons
of the military interventions of the past 12 years (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya).
The leopard, it is said, does not change its spots, and in this case there are
several leopards hunting in the same neighbourhood.

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